Dominion Board Game Review. Dominion - board games. New experiences every time
On the site Notes of a Novosibirsk desk worker there was a detailed review of the game Dominion... After reading it, you will learn literally everything about the game: and what is Dominion, and what it consists of, what advantages and disadvantages it has and ... something else.
“Like your parents, you are a monarch. The ruler of a cute little kingdom - rivers, forests and all that. But, unlike your parents, you have ambitions! You want a kingdom bigger and nicer - more rivers, forests, and so on. You want yourself real estate! And after all, there are a lot of "independent" patches of land around, ruled by toy "lords", but in fact mired in anarchy. How not to bring civilization there by uniting them under your own flag?
But what is this ?! Is the idea so obvious that the neighboring monarchs also thought of it? We'll have to be proactive: grab the no-man's land and drive away rivals from them. Acquire henchmen, start construction, strengthen the castle, fill the treasury ... Hmm, perhaps your parents would not have been delighted with this. Although, if you dig into history, all this is quite in the spirit of your maternal ancestors ... "
These words open the book of the rules of the game, which will be discussed today. "Dominion" was Essen's 2008 hit and remains a hit now: on this moment seventh place in the BGG rating with 12.5 thousand voters. The list of awards is also quite inspiring; suffice it to say that it has “Spiel des Jahres” and “Meeples Choice”.
You are one of the lords of a mighty kingdom, which will literally be snatched from the hands of other pretenders. The Dominion should be yours and only yours: all means are good for this.
Spin until you win!
Technically, the game looks from the outside as a tense duel on cards, similar to the classic collectible card games. The main difference between "Dominion" is that inside the box there are already all the necessary 500 cards: for the game you only have to take from them the ones you need for the current alignment and try to play to the maximum.
What are these 500 cards?
How to play?
Who is this game for?
Is there an instruction?
Yes. In addition to 500 cards in the box, you will find a complete Russian instruction, divided into 2 parts: for a detailed reading and a "cheat sheet" for experienced players who have already plunged into the battle for their Dominion. 
“Like your parents, you are a monarch. The ruler of a cute little kingdom - rivers, forests and all that. But, unlike your parents, you have ambitions! You want a kingdom bigger and nicer - more rivers, forests, and so on. You want yourself real estate! And after all, there are a lot of "independent" patches of land around, ruled by toy "lords", but in fact mired in anarchy. How not to bring civilization there by uniting them under your own flag?
But what is this ?! Is the idea so obvious that the neighboring monarchs also thought of it? We'll have to be proactive: grab the no-man's land and drive away rivals from them. Acquire henchmen, start construction, strengthen the castle, fill the treasury ... Hmm, perhaps your parents would not have been delighted with this. Although, if you dig into history, all this is quite in the spirit of your maternal ancestors ... "
These words open the book of the rules of the game, which will be discussed today. "Dominion" was Essen's 2008 hit, and it remains a hit now: at the moment it is the seventh place in the BGG rating with 12.5 thousand votes. The list of awards is also quite inspiring; suffice it to say that it has “Spiel des Jahres” and “Meeples Choice”.
So, before us is a card game for 2-4 people, played on average for 30-40 minutes. The theme is to build as strong a kingdom as possible, which is represented by card deck... And here, before speaking further, we have to remember two whales on which stand collectible card games (CCG):
- each player in competition with the opponent (s) operates your own deck;
- acquiring cards and building your own deck of cards is an integral part of the player's lifestyle.
It would seem, what does this have to do with it, after all, "Dominion" is not a CCI? In fact, very much even to do with it. The fact is that he reproduces the same two principles within the framework of the game. traditional.
The difference with the CCG is that the cards for your deck will have to be obtained not in stores and exchanges with other players, but from the “base”. The box contains a large number of cards with various effects (25 types in total), and before the start of the party, a subset of them is selected (specifically 10). Each player receives a minimum " starter kit"(It is the same for everyone) - and go! Paying with "cash" cards from this set, you can buy cards from the "base" for your deck, and then use them to further develop the deck, as well as to acquire cards for victory points.
There are three types of cards in total:
- Action cards - allow you to do something or get some benefit.
- Money cards - allow you to buy new cards for your deck.
- Victory Points Cards - These are the same Victory Points at the end of the game. (In fact, there are also curse cards that do the same thing, but with the opposite sign, i.e. take away victory points.)
There are also combo cards that combine more than one type, but there are relatively few of them.
The players' decks are constantly "scrolling": played and paid cards go to the discard, and when the deck ends, the discard is shuffled and goes back to work. As in CCI, there is the concept of "remove from the game" (here it is called a trash zone).
Each turn consists of three phases:
- Actions. Here you can play an action card - by default only one, but some cards add immediately to play more.
- Purchases. Here you can buy a card from the "base" to your deck - again, by default, only one, but some action cards (played in the previous phase) add the number of purchases. You can pay with both treasure cards from your hand and with “virtual” bonus money, which again are provided by some action cards from the previous phase. Purchased cards are discarded.
- Cleaning. After completing the actions of the previous two phases, the player discards the remainder of the cards from his hand and immediately takes five new ones from his deck.
Actually, this is all regulations! The actual is determined by the Action Cards played. As an example, let's look at three things (the images of the cards are taken from outside sources - my copy of the game is still coming to me - so do not be surprised at some color difference).
(Spy), being played, immediately gives its owner one card to hand from the deck and the right to play another action card. Also, after that all the players reveal the top cards of their decks, and the player who played the Spy decides whether to leave them there at the top, or immediately transfer them to the discard. Any such action affecting other players is considered attack, which is written at the bottom of the map. (There are cards that allow you to repel or weaken other people's attacks.)
(Village), being played, immediately gives its owner one card to hand from the deck and the right to play two more action cards.
(Workshop), when played, gives the owner the right is free take into your deck any card from the base worth up to 4 inclusive (for example, the same Spy or the same Village). Let me remind you that after this there is a buying phase, when you can buy something else.
I think looking at the Spy map, many have already found the answer to the question hanging in the air: the interaction of players in the "Dominion" is... 🙂 Some cards (the same Spy) allow others to be tainted in parallel with their own benefit, some exclusively and purely nasty, and sometimes very disgusting. The number of both is not so small.
The game ends when one of two conditions is met. Either the pile of Provinces cards is depleted in the "base" (these cards are the most valuable, each brings 6 victory points), or they are depleted three any stacks. The winner is the one who scored the most victory points (in case of a draw, the one who needed fewer moves for this, i.e. everything is determined by the position of the last player to move in relation to the one whose move opened the game).
Here the question may be quite logical: what, in fact, is the salt of the game? Why is it so catchy with such simple rules?
And the zest is the same as in the CCI. 🙂 In the playable deck balance. Let me explain now.
In hand - five cards at the beginning of the turn. And this, I must say, is not a weak limitation! Because:
- We need to collect victory points cards. But they will play their part only at the very end. And when they come to hand in the course of the game, they will only uselessly take a place in it, constraining actions.
- You have to have a lot of money to buy valuable cards. But the mentioned Province card, for example, costs 8 coins. And at the beginning of the game basically you cannot have more than five on your hand (five “copper” cards, one coin each, and then if you are lucky). This means that you have to buy money “in large denominations”, but ... a “gold” card with a value of three coins costs as much as six when buying! And even after buying them, a small-value trifle will creep into your hand, again holding down your actions.
- You need to have powerful cards of useful actions. But they are also expensive (see item 2), and it is not a fact that they will come at the right time. This means that you need to have some kind of means to deliver them to your hand. Which, again, are powerful cards of useful actions - see item 3. 🙂
In general, the deck must be built with great intelligence. So after all, it’s not enough - she has to play directly in the course of construction! Moreover, perhaps, and somehow adapt to the actions of rivals, and to their dirty tricks! So there is a zest, and an immense one.
If you observe the actions of experienced players, it can be very impressive. An experienced player can build a deck that "scrolls" through the hand completely in one move (and in such a deck you don't need a lot of money: why are there a lot of them if they all end up in your hand anyway?). An experienced player can generously pour money and victory points into thrash, and still win (because a well-functioning mechanism for getting much larger money and much more victory points will remain in the deck). This, of course, also depends on the composition of the "base". In general, you will not see here yourself - you will not understand ...
First spoon concerns the gaming legend, and now I will again remember "Race for the Galaxy". Here's the thing. Some who played "Galaxy" note that they do not create associations in their heads. game mechanics and the stated theme (building a galactic state). Say, the cards and their actions are tied to the topic unconvincingly.
So. If this is about you, then "Dominion" will seem to you attracted to its theme in general by the ears. 🙂 "Galaxy" in comparison with him - the pinnacle of logic and strict associations. 🙂
It is quite enough even those cards that were given above as an example. The spy, for example, is quite logical. And the Village ?! Why is it "plus one card, plus two actions"? What's the connection with the village name? (note that "plus two cards, plus one action" - this will be Laboratory... And "plus two coins, plus one purchase" - for some reason log). Or here's the Workshop. With this card, you can get a card in the deck for free Counties (Estate, one victory point, cost two coins). How, tell me, does the workshop ensure the territorial expansion of the kingdom ?! 🙂 And there are many such examples.
Second spoon becomes apparent when you open the game box and look inside. It contains exactly 500 cards - no more and no less! And cards of different types should not interfere with each other (otherwise preparation for each game will take a lot of time, it won't seem like a little).
From here, on the one hand, follows such a "tray" storage method, as you can see in the picture on the right. Reasonable and relatively convenient from a practical point of view, but takes up a lot of space. In the gallery on BGG you can see how people are perverted in order to minimize the volume - especially popular filing cabinets with signed dividers. 🙂
On the other hand, the unspoken rule of the game unambiguously follows from this: they drove the party - if you please, carefully arrange all the used cards in piles for the convenience of future games! And then select piles from the box for a new game, and (perhaps) count the cards out of them according to the number of players, and put them on the table in ascending order ... It takes quite a lot of time, especially in comparison with fairly fast games ...
On the third side - buy 500 protectors! And put cards on them! And this is highly recommended, because the cards are walking around the hands and on the table extremely intensively. It's good at least that (according to reviews) protected cards continue to fit into the box, albeit with some tweaks.
And now let's summarize, according to the already familiar and worked out scheme.
Advantages of the game:
- A very interesting mechanic, a kind of variation on the CCG theme, but without constantly spending money on the development of the deck. A wide variety of possible strategies, depending on the composition of the cards selected in the "base". (Combinatorics suggests that you can choose 10 cards out of 25 in 3268760 ways. Moreover, it is far from the fact that within each there is a single optimal strategy, and even if so, then it still needs to be found ...)
- Nobody forces you to choose the "base" cards at random. You can do this based on your gaming preferences. Want some intense Munchkin-style dirty tricks - turn on on more cards with attacks. If you want a pure competition with a complete absence of interference, do exactly the opposite. For training beginners, you can take a set that excludes especially sophisticated interactions and effects, etc. Several possible options are given in the rules. By the way, this is very convenient for holding tournaments.
- Excellent scalability. Dominion is superbly played by any line-up of players announced by the publisher 2-4. For practice (or strategy testing), it is quite possible to drive the deck alone.
Disadvantages of the game:
- Form factor with all the ensuing consequences: inconvenience of storage / carrying, manipulation between batches, the need for a large number of protectors. See detailed discussion above.
- Fairly weak link between game mechanics and legend. (You shouldn't give the game to fantasy lovers just because of the theme.) The details are again above.
- In some layouts of the "base", a very large downtime may appear (waiting time for a move). Scrolling through a deck of two or three dozen cards, for example, takes a fair amount of time - during which other players just have to wait. If there are more than two people playing, it can be quite boring. It is partially treated by the possibility of selecting a "base" for the situation (see merits).
Ambiguous features of the game:
- Despite the fact that the rules are very simple, practical mastering of the game will take a lot of time. It takes real experience. So Dominion is a game for those who are ready to learn and know how to do it. Until you are torn a dozen or two times by experienced players, you simply will not get a feel for what the peculiarity and strength of certain cards is, and how they can be used with the greatest benefit. Do you agree to be vomited in the learning process? 🙂 Decide for yourself.
Well, and at the end of the day there are a few more comments.
First, Dominion can be played great online (against live opponents) at BrettspielWelt. There have even been implemented additions to the game - though partially, but still noticeably increases interest. Or you can play against the computer, which I wrote about quite recently. True, this computer partner is very weak, but it will go as an initial training and for basic training.
Secondly, development is in progress now. official computer version of the game. And I don’t know who how, but I won’t spare the money when it comes out.
Thirdly, just a few days ago, "SMART" announced the upcoming localization of "Dominion" in Russia. They promise in the fall of 2010 ... however, until now they have rarely met the stated deadlines. My forecast is hardly earlier than the New Year. 🙂 If anyone did not understand, this is the very important reason that was mentioned at the beginning of the review.. 🙂
And fourthly, the last. I wonder what the recent times there were many auxiliary "Dominion" -programs for mobile phones and the PDA. Purpose - to generate a set of "base" according to the specified conditions. For example, which add-ons to use. Or so that the "base" includes maps of all available values. Or that “antidotes” should be included on the cards of attacks, etc. It is clear that this clearly indicates the growth of interest in the game.
Good day, Your Excellency! Like the deep roots of your descendants, you are the ruler, the only king of a small cute kingdom in the world of lakes, streams and huge green forests. But if you compare you and your descendants, you are full of goals and endowed with dreams! Yes, cute little kingdom is good, but you are the king, you already need something more! You need it! But in order to unite the scattered lands that do not yet represent and do not understand that they will be better under your cozy wing, you will have to sweat!
But there was a small snag. This thought stuck in the minds of other rulers too! And nowhere to go, for every piece of land now have to fight. The path to victory is the army, good and smart helpers and, of course, providing the treasury. Don't expect your parents to be proud of your actions, but we know for sure that your paternal grandfather will definitely appreciate the essence of what is happening! Go for it!
a deck of cards will appear for each player. It includes the resources of the kingdom, the lands of the state, various actions. The beginning will not be so bright, you will collect various resources and spend copper coins... By the end of the game, the richest, smartest, kindest and most strategically savvy ruler will be the winner!
The more points you have, the closer you are to creating your utopian kingdom!
Preparation
Let's start our review! The first player must be chosen by the method of compliance or by lot. Then you will move in a circle and next game the person to the left of the pioneer will start.
Collected 7 copper and 3 copper. All this is mixed and placed on the table with the back side. The participant's own deck is ready, you need to draw 5 cards from it.
In the board game, not all cards are played. Those that remain in the box will be called reserves and are laid out separately in some place on the game table. If you look closely, its type will be indicated on the bottom of the map. The discarded cards are called a junkyard.
Each of his turns, the player performs 3 phases:
- Actions: You can play an action card
- Acquisitions: well, here you probably guessed the purchase process
- Clearing: After the first two phases, there is a discard phase and a draw of 5 cards from the deck
At the end of the last phase, the move goes to the next participant.
Actions
If you have a card that says Action, then it can be played. At the very beginning, there is a purchase of various cards for copper coins, so you will not see action cards for the first couple of moves. An action card assumes the execution of the instructions that are written on it. While all the instructions on the card are being fulfilled, it is in the participant's personal zone, then goes to the discard. More details can be found in the section Rules of the game.
Editions
- Dominion (basic version)
- Dominion. Seaside
- Dominion. Intrigue
To play, we post:
- Three decks of treasure cards, gold, silver and copper. The largest number of copper cards.
- Three decks of victory cards, they are green.
- Ten decks with action cards.
The essence of the game. Gold is needed to buy cards, and victory cards are needed to ensure winnings. The man with the most victory cards at the end of the game whitewashed. There are a large number of action cards to win. There are 25 of them, but 10 are needed to play. That is, each game we choose from a total of 10 action cards, this provides good playability and variety in. The gameplay is constantly built in different ways and each time the game feels like a new one. We take out 10 decks of 10 cards (there are 10 identical cards in one deck) and put them on the table. There are attack cards, reactions, etc. As an example, thief, spy, witch are attack cards. An attack is a kind of action, when we claim any values of other players, their money, cards. Among the action cards, there are witch cards, if they are present, we must put curse cards into the game, they will be received by the players on whom the witch has put a curse. According to the rules, the game is from 2 to 4 people, if you want to increase 
number of players and play 6, you will need to buy an add-on and combine the two games. Participants are given 7 copper cards (let's take a game for two as an example) and 3 manor cards. The estate with the number 1 is the smallest victory card and is worth one point. The resulting cards are the player's deck. We carefully shuffle it and put it face down, then we collect 5 cards from there. The cost in coins is written on the cards below, in order to buy them you need to pay the corresponding amount.
Example: We got 3 copper and 2 estates on our hands. We buy 1 treasure map - silver, as it costs 3 copper. Estate cards are only needed at the end when scoring, so we discard them. We put the purchased silver card and 3 copper in the same discard. All in all, we have a pile of cards that we can play when our whole deck is over.
In the opponent's turn, he has 5 copper, with which he buys a witch. Throws it all into its own dump. The first player goes next, he takes the remaining 5 cards of his deck. There are 4 copper and 1 manor. Silver is bought again and the cards are discarded. During the second player's turn, he takes out the remaining 2 coins and buys the estate with them. The cards are discarded.
The most difficult part of the board game is the shuffling of the discard and the formation of the assembled deck. Previously purchased cards will be present in the new deck, that is, by buying them, we provide ourselves with a future for subsequent moves. After shuffling the cards, we again collect 5 pieces.
Example: We come across 4 copper and 1 silver. We buy a thief with them and hand over everything to the dump. The second player similarly only comes across money, we buy a thief.
The most interesting thing begins when we come across action cards. In one move, you can make one purchase and one action.
Example
: The second player comes across a witch, according to the rules of the game of witches, it gives him the right to take two cards from the deck, and she also imposes a curse on each opponent in the form of a curse card. We take the curse card. What does it give, firstly, it can fall into the hand and interfere like an unnecessary card, at the end of the game it will also kill one estate. Our move. A village falls into the hand, it gives the right to play two actions per turn and draw one card. We collect a card, a thief comes across. The thief card indicates that all other players reveal the top two cards of their deck. If there are treasure maps among them, we can pick them up or throw them out of the game. Then we buy a moat. It helps to defend against the attacks of the thief, for this, during the attack of the thief, you just need to show it.
There is one more interesting map- Throne room. It allows you to play an action card from your hand and multiplies its mod by two, for example, a village would give two cards and allow you to perform 4 actions. Action cards add to us any amount of purchases, money, allow us to spy on the enemy, discard unnecessary cards. The more expensive the card, the better it will play in the future. The game ends when any three decks are empty, or the deck with large estates ends, but you can come up with some rules of your own, or what will determine its end.
Full rules can be downloaded.
Greetings Your Majesty!
Yes, you, like a long line of your ancestors, are a monarch, the sole ruler of a small cozy kingdom on the edge of rivers and evergreen forests. But there is a significant difference between your ancestors and you: you are full of hopes and dreams! You need a larger and more comfortable kingdom, you are acutely aware of the lack of rivers, and in the forests you would like a greater variety of species of trees and shrubs. You need a dominion! We will have to try so that the surrounding freeholds, fiefs and fiefs, these scraps of land, ruled with grief in half by petty and mediocre landlords, take the gifts of civilization from your hands and unite into a mighty state under your banners.
Such is the lyrical introduction, set out at the very beginning game rules, anticipates acquaintance with the game "Dominion". Actually, as soon as these lines are read, you can safely forget about the game plot and any hints of a little plot. Before us is a game, the action of which could unfold anywhere, anytime. This game is not about the Middle Ages and not about a desperate struggle for power. This is a game about the visual adherence to the principle of "Occam's Razor", as well as about the work of Hercule Poirot's favorite "gray cells". You are disappointed? Intrigued? Don't jump to conclusions. Let's figure it out now.
House of cards
If you play the Lumberjack card this turn, sawing gold earns two extra coins!
The similarity of "Dominion" with collectible card games (hereinafter - CCG) is noticeable to the naked eye - they hide in a large cardboard box exclusively 500 cards. Of course, their names and purposes are very diverse: kingdom cards are the main resource of the game and basically allow you to manipulate your deck, victory cards are an indicator of the points gained during the game, and treasure cards are needed to purchase all other cards. although they themselves are purchased for the same "currency". Add to this the curse cards, which are used to poison the lives of opponents, and special dummy cards, the only use of which is to replace lost brothers.
The differences from the CCG lie in the main idea of the game - there is no need to try to assemble a super deck that kills the enemy on the second move - all players start the game on equal terms, and only a correctly chosen tactic of acquiring and playing certain public cards can ensure victory. The cost of a mistake in such conditions is quite high - a strategy chosen incorrectly at the start can lead to difficulties in the late game, and a fatal mistake in the pre-final race can cost a victory in the game.
The players' moves are very short-lived and consist of three textbook phases. Here they are:
The Most Expensive Kingdom Map in the Game - Adventurer
Action phase, in which players lay out action cards from the deck and receive advantages corresponding to a particular card;
Acquisition phase, during which the players spend the monetary resources on hand to expand their deck with new cards:
Clearing phase- the phase during which unplayed cards are added to those that were played from hand this turn, and new hand of five cards.
Triumph is awarded to the player who has the most victory cards in his deck at the end of the game - absolutely useless during the game, but the only important one when it comes to determining the winner. This rule is the most important principle of the game, dictating the only correct approach, familiar to all fans of CCGs: the deck should be of the minimum size and contain the maximum number of useful maps... A unique feature of "Dominion" is that at the moment when there are no more cards left in the deck, the player forms a new one from the cards lying in the discard, which means that the same card can come during the game practically unlimited quantity once. It is in the ability to correctly compose your deck (read - to choose the correct ratio of kingdom cards, victory cards and treasure cards) that lies the secret of great achievements.
Need more gold!
After several games in Dominion, despite all the variety of tactics and the element of randomness, one realizes that the potential of the game is by no means 100% revealed. Indeed, the original Dominion most closely resembles the base set in the Collector's card games- no brain-blowing mechanics and complex strategies, the triumph of a bare idea, and nothing more. Of course, the developers also understood this, and therefore a decent number of additions have already been released for the game in the West. In the meantime, we are waiting for them official appearance on the Russian market, let's get to know them better:
How to get to the library?
Lonely thief. The magician and the warrior in the "Dominion"
not delivered
Well, something, and the variety of tactics "Dominion" does not hold. Various types of kingdom cards are responsible for it, of which there are more in the game box than takes part in each game. Thus, nothing prevents players from getting used to first with basic kits proposed for beginners by the authors, and then try out more sophisticated layouts, which imply more complicated tactics and an increased degree of intensity of the struggle.
Despite the previously mentioned absence of any plot, the names of the cards go well with the mechanics of their action. For example, smithy allows you to "forge" additional three cards from the deck, market adds a little bit of everything, and militia forces opponents to discard cards, at the same time enriching the owner with extra gold for purchases. Fans of a wide variety of play styles - from unbridled aggression to peaceful acquisitiveness - will be satisfied, there is room for any approach.
It is interesting: dominion - during the times of the former British Empire: a self-governing state that is part of this empire and depends on it in its domestic and foreign policy ( Explanatory dictionary Ozhegova).
Win-win lottery
After a certain number of games in "Dominion", one involuntarily asks the question: is there not a single strategy of victory? After all, here everyone is in equal starting conditions, and the variations of the kingdom cards on the table are finite. The correct answer is yes, there is such a strategy. Astute players will guess after a few rounds that the easiest way to score many, many victory points is to buy the most expensive cards provinces for 8 USD each one. While opponents enthusiastically acquire “interesting action cards for trial”, cold-blooded strategists accumulate banknote cards of the maximum denomination in the deck, and if they have at least eight coins on their hand, they immediately acquire a province for themselves.